The federal government says the census website was not attacked or hacked and no data was lost.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics shut down the website after a series of denial-of-service attacks on Tuesday night, with the strongest one coming just after 7.30pm (AEST).

“This was not an attack, nor was it a hack but rather, it was an attempt to frustrate the collection of Bureau of Statistics census data,” minister Michael McCormack told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.

The Bureau of Statistics decided to shut down the census form to safeguard and protect data already submitted, the minister said.

There was a large-scale denial-of-service attack on the website, which is when the site is flooded with requests for information and the servers are overwhelmed – as if a huge crowd of people tried to get through a doorway all at the same time.

“Following, and because of this, there was a hardware failure,” Mr McCormack said, saying the ABS took a very cautious approach in shutting down the site.

“This was not an attack, nor was it a hack but rather, it was an attempt to frustrate the collection of Bureau of Statistics census data,” minister Michael McCormack told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.
Following, and because of this, there was a hardware failure,” Mr McCormack said, saying the ABS took a very cautious approach in shutting down the site.

Although the ABS does not think any personal data was compromised during the hack on its site, it is advising people who completed the online form after 7 p.m. last night to change their name as a precautionary measure.

The Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull commended the ABS for its innovative response to the problem.

Anyone with kids knows that at the witching hour of 12.00 am when the OP scores etc are available, the education dept computers shut down due to demand..
This country is stuck on the moebius strip of stupidity

THE Census website was shut down overnight after being targeted by foreign hackers in a malicious attack, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has revealed.

“It was an attack,” chief statistician David Kalisch told ABC radio this morning.
“It was quite clear it was malicious.”

The ABS said is was now working with the Australian Signals Directorate to determine the source of the attack.

However, Mr Kalisch said so far it had been difficult to work out where the hack came from.

Presumably that was some time last night. But by this morning, the relevant (I can’t call him responsible) Minister is saying:

The federal government says the census website was not attacked or hacked and no data was lost.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics shut down the website after a series of denial-of-service attacks on Tuesday night, with the strongest one coming just after 7.30pm (AEST).

“This was not an attack, nor was it a hack but rather, it was an attempt to frustrate the collection of Bureau of Statistics census data,” minister Michael McCormack told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.

So the sleaze, and the slime, and the ducking and weaving, and the lies and the cover ups start within hours of the event. About the kindest thing I can say is that I admire Mr McCormack’s verbal innovation and moral agility.

Yep, right when people have dinner, the kids are in bed, and they have few minutes. Had I done it online that is right about the time I would have started.

Who are they trying to kid ?

What?
Noooo.
In Canberra world, they would have all been given a leisurely two hours at work to complete it on-line during the day.
The concept of people being flat-out doing a real job and only getting a chance to look at it after dinner simply didn’t occur to the lazy fuckers.

I got a letter at the city penthouse (sorry for going Lizzie on you) and requested a paper copy.
When I got to the country estate (Lizzie-ing again) there was another form under the mat.
So I will end up with two forms.
Double trouble.

Absolute bullshit I’d reckon. They will never tell you what sort of “attack” it was, or if they do it will be a massive DDOS attack… untraceable and – not coincidentally – looking for all the World like they were massively overloaded.

Mr Turnbull said there would be a review into last night’s events, but said the ABS retained its “unblemished record” in regards to the security of census data. “The one thing that is absolutely crystal clear is that there was no penetration of the ABS website,” he said. “This is based on the advice we have.”

Mr Turnbull said there would be a review into last night’s events, but said the ABS retained its “unblemished record” in regards to the security of census data. “The one thing that is absolutely crystal clear is that there was no penetration of the ABS website,” he said. “This is based on the advice we have.”

Canada has managed to run a competent online Census since 2006 (5 yearly) and the UK in 2011 (10 yearly), albeit both still post forms out to households as well, with online responses at approx. 20%.

Interestingly, Lockheed Martin was the external contractor in both Canada and the UK in terms of providing the census infrastructure (actual data remaining with the respective national statistics bodies.

Mr Turnbull said there would be a review into last night’s events, but said the ABS retained its “unblemished record” in regards to the security of census data. “The one thing that is absolutely crystal clear is that there was no penetration of the ABS website,” he said. “This is based on the advice we have.”

Advice from whom? The same bozos who are running this clusterfuck?

Of course. As a consequence, this ‘crystal clear’ advice is utterly unreliable. Yesterday morning, the ABC local radio ran an interview with some ABS person who assured us repeatedly that everything had been thoroughly checked and tested and everything was absolutely going to be fine…which is was right up until it wasn’t.

There was a large-scale denial-of-service attack on the website, which is when the site is flooded with requests for information and the servers are overwhelmed – as if a huge crowd of people tried to get through a doorway all at the same time.

Do they even understand what they’re saying.

The traditional way the census has been executed, reinforced by their advertising campaign, guaranteed that there would be an effective DDOS by the entire population of Australia.

Duncanm,
“ The traditional way the census has been executed, reinforced by their advertising campaign, guaranteed that there would be an effective DDOS by the entire population of Australia.”
That’s how I see it too. In the design of any critical application you need redundancy. In a critical pumping application you have two sized pumps alternating duty on site and a spare in the store. A little more engineering design maybe required at ABS.

Waffleworth is right at the stage where Gillard was – couldn’t make it from week to week without something blowing up. For weeks Ol’ Leathery and the pom pom girls would lament, “If only Labor could get some clear air.”

And this is before Parliament resumes where he blew a 30 seat majority, has no political capital, hasn’t passed the Budget and faces a hostile populist Senate. Good luck with that.

Here’s what we need to do. Demand that Turnbull announce there will be no fines for census non-completion this year. And watch as the balance of millions of households say, “fine, we won’t bother then!”.

I think that’s Shorten’s playbook already. But there is no moral case for fining people who don’t fill out a potentially compromised census. Indeed it looks like the Russians have hacked us already.

I’m trying to see a downside to this whole exercise.
Big Government types are upset by an obvious failure of Big Government.
Small Government types are delighted by an obvious failure of Big Government.
Malcolm cops another knee to the plums.

If Turnbull can be forced into a blanket amnesty on Census non-completion, this will be the end of his leadership. Millions of people will immediately opt-out of completing the census, and the data will be mostly useless. Just wait for the recriminations!

That’s going to be the anti-Turnbull playbook in the next few weeks, and we must insist that Turnbull renounce all penalties for non-completion!

The one thing that is absolutely crystal clear is that there was no penetration of the ABS website,
…
In my experience, phrases like “let me be clear”, or “absolutely crystal clear “, or “important to clarify” tend to be associated with obfuscation and misdirection.

…
Let me be clear – and I want to make it absolutely crystal clear – that it is important to clarify that I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms Lewinsky.

The ABS aired a dishonest advertisement on the night of 9 August 2016 by The advertisement can be viewed here: Census Advertisement
The advertisement has a female voice saying “Remember, every household must participate”. The use of the word ‘must’ implies that the Census is compulsory. It is not.
The 2011 census form stated “your cooperation is sought in completing this form” Nowhere on the form did it state that the Census is compulsory. A separate leaflet which the Census collectors gave to people who asked “is it compulsory?” stated “Ultimately, yes. … At this time you are being asked to answer the questions in the Census form. If you do not answer the questions, the Australian Statistician has the power to direct you in writing to provide the information.”
The same circumstances currently apply to the 2016 Census.
Here’s why:
Section 10(3) of the Census and Statistics Act 1905 The Census, only gives the Statistician the power to REQUEST that a person fill up a form or answer questions in the Census. The status of the Census campaign on the night of 9 August 2016 was that the Statistician legally could only ‘request’ people to fill out the form. The use of the words ‘must participate’ in the television advertisement identified above was in conflict with the legal authority of the ABS and misleading in that it falsely implied that the Census is compulsory.
The Act does have compulsion and penalty provisions but these could not be, and were not activated on census night. If a person refuses or ignores the ABS’ request for information then Section 10(4) of the Act gives the ABS the power “by notice in writing served either personally or by post on” the person to ‘direct’ that person to fill out the Census form. This authority was not active on the night of 9 August 2016 because no person had refused to comply with the ABS request per Section 10(3) and no Section 10(4) Notice of Direction had been served on any individual to render the Census compulsory.
In summary, there was no legal compulsion on people to complete the Census form on 9 August 2016 and by using the phrase “Remember, every household must participate” in its advertisement the Australian Bureau of Statistics deliberately and dishonestly attempted to mislead and deceive the viewers of its advertisement.

Snowcone has decided to ditch the bearded ladies and Iranian dwarf tossing for The Snowcone Variety Hour this week and has gone with Letters and Numbers maths nerd babe Lily Serna. In the interests of not ruining my fantasy of retiring to a small desert island with Ms Serna to surf for the remainder of my days I won’t be watching as I suspect she will fall in with the Snowcone virtue signalling pile on to any hapless conservatives.

So this Data Collection of where every Australian of every sex and age can be expected to be found and what times and how much wealth and back up they have, That Collection of Data ENTERED, that “crashed”, but “hasn’t been hacked/has been aggressively attacked by foreign sources”, is nothing we should worry about?

Just like no one should worry about Jihadists flying passenger liners or working at airports?

Just like we also shouldn’t worry about rich Jihadists advancing invasion by “sponsoring” the importation of Jihadi “workers”?

Just like we shouldn’t worry about all the government wonks (at all levels), making Non-Muslims criminals for expressing their disgust at Muslim criminals getting away with violent pack attacks?

So, we should worry about this either, cos it must just be another coincidental stuff up, right?

Top Ender
#2115635, posted on August 10, 2016 at 4:44 pm

Immigration website crashes:

Government’s immigration website goes down
AAP4:26PM August 10, 2016

The immigration department’s online service has gone down.

The ImmiAccount website on Wednesday afternoon posted the message: “Unplanned System Outage. ImmiAccount is currently unavailable. Technical teams are investigating the issue.”

The service allows users to lodge a visa or citizenship application and check the progress of applications.

The department said in a statement to AAP there were “IT issues” affecting the call centre, website and emails.

“All of our systems which are critical to the security of the Australian border continue to function as normal,” the department said.
“These issues are in no way linked to those experienced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.”

From the Oz – link if you dare.

Nah, it’s Not Right!

You tell us you don’t know what happened, you’re investigating both “crashes”, but you know they aren’t related and we are all secure?!

Seriously, the govt wonks, I can almost forgive, but NOT any anonymous online IT “experts” who continue to tell us it’s cool, and only paranoid idiots would think otherwise.

Or do I have to remind everyone again, that the one thing everyone agrees on is that Muslim Jihadists have been killing us with their highly skilled use of The Internet.

So, the meltdown of the government systems that harvest all our most personal information, that’s no biggie, coz … you don’t live in Australia … you’re only a sock puppet … got bloody well paid to help manoeuvre Turnbull into the PMship and you’ll lose your bonus if you cause him grief before time … ?

The mind boggles …

Fisky
#2115675, posted on August 10, 2016 at 5:56 pm
This is not good.

Asher Wolf [email protected]_Wolf 57m57 minutes ago
So those census forms that were saved but not submitted because ppl couldn’t finish: they’re stored in plaintext. Not encrypted. #CensusFail

Not to mention all the data ENTERED but that we’re told, simply “vanished” when people tried to send the completed online form. Where, into The Cloud? Siphoned into another’s system?

And, while we’re at it, how secure are all the mailed, paper forms, sent through AusPost, headed by that very dodgy Muslim.

ABS chief David Kalisch: “The scale of the attack, it was quite clear it was malicious.”

Yup – millions of Australians trying to log on like a few of us here last night, to much hilarity.

The government now declares compliant middle class citizens as ‘malicious’ because their system design was up their arses. This is how it starts.

( Disclaimer – I may be exaggerating here a bit, but there is a fair case to be made that the Protected Classes of the West are irrevocably fed up with their existing, fickle demos – and are pretty keen to find ways to replace the existing electorate with a more accommodating one. The middle class is squarely in the sights ).

Assuming the decision to do this census on line was made by labor during its lamentable period in office, we have yet another landline planted in the Australian populace by those reprobates. Deliberately.
Add it to NBN, NDIS, unlimited university places and the carbon tax as Australia-destroying initiatives.

This is terrific. Hopefully the Senate cross-bench will take up the call for the census to be scrapped. First we have to force Turnbull to abandon all fines up to and after September 23. Then, once that has been declared, it becomes in effect a voluntary census that no one needs to complete. When the census collapses, that’s it for the government. They’re done.

Assuming the decision to do this census on line was made by labor during its lamentable period in office, we have yet another landline planted in the Australian populace by those reprobates.

At the 2011 Australian Census, residents were able to complete their information* on line if they chose to. We did, and it was a doddle – as it was again for people who got on line for this year’s Census before last night’s meltdown. Folks here at the Cat have said they did so, as early as 5.30 yesterday morning, and that it was easy and took only 15 minutes and was submitted without a hitch.

* including names and addresses (which have been collected in every Census since 1911), as well as the option to allow their retention for 99 years and publication after that time (this option was also available at the 2006 Census, when the Coalition was in government).

The Government have now called in an IT guru to help it secure the site.

The problem is, the head of the ABS yesterday admitted the site was “attacked”. So even if they do get the site up and running again, people will simply be able to quote the ABS head and claim it is unsafe to enter their private information. Especially as they were furiously assured prior to census date that the website was safe, and it clearly wasn’t.

So I don’t think they will be able to punish people for boycotting the census, and that means the census is over.

Malcolm Turnbull in a radio interview by Alan Jones this morning has claimed that that DDoS attacks on the Census site were entirely predictable and the fault lays with the ABS and its contractor IBM who failed to establish proper layered protection (particularly upstream blackholing) against ‘automated botnet pingers’.

So, the meltdown of the government systems that harvest all our most personal information, that’s no biggie, coz … you don’t live in Australia … you’re only a sock puppet … got bloody well paid to help manoeuvre Turnbull into the PMship and you’ll lose your bonus if you cause him grief before time … ?

Liberty Quote

I think ordinary citizens should enjoy the same “good faith immunity” that law enforcement officials enjoy. That they do not is, I suggest, a violation of the Constitutional injunction against titles of nobility. One thing that a title of nobility grants, after all, is exemption from laws that bedevil the little people.